Livable communities in the Obama era

[caption id="attachment_759" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Obama campaign's Boston phonebanking office, day before Election Day"][/caption]

This isn't a "political" blog, but now that the election is history -- congratulations to President-elect Obama, and to all of us who worked so hard to make it happen! -- it's time to take a look at what an Obama administration might mean for the goals of more walkable, livable communities.

President-elect Obama will have a full plate of crises when he takes office in January, what with the economic woes and two wars. So I'm under no illusions that community planning issues will be atop his agenda. However, he has strong opinions about transportation and community development, ones that see our urban centers not as "unreal America," but as centers of vibrancy and innovation. He has pledged to create a White House Office on Urban Policy and to financially support "innovation clusters" defined as "regional centers of innovation and next-generation industries."

Happily, he is also on record favoring "more livable and sustainable communities." Says his policy Web site: "Our communities will better serve all of their residents if we are able to leave our cars, to walk, bicycle and access other transportation alternatives. As president, Barack Obama will re-evaluate the transportation funding process to ensure that smart growth considerations are taken into account. . . .

How a community is designed – including the layout of its roads, buildings and parks – has a huge impact on the health of its residents. For instance, nearly one-third of Americans live in neighborhoods without sidewalks and less than half of our country's children have a playground within walking distance of their homes. Barack Obama introduced the Healthy Places Act to help local governments assess the health impact of new policies and projects, like highways or shopping centers.

His campaign's 4-page transportation plan includes funding for Amtrak, development of high-speed passenger and freight rail service, invest in public transportation and create more incentives for mass transit use (such as ending the tax code inequities that allow employers to provide more tax-free parking benefits to workers than for carpooling or mass transit).

As president, Barack Obama will re-evaluate the transportation funding process to ensure that smart growth considerations are taken into account. Obama will build upon his efforts in the Senate to ensure that more Metropolitan Planning Organizations create policies to incentivize greater bicycle and pedestrian usage of roads and sidewalks. As president, Obama will work to provide states and local governments with the resources they need to address sprawl and create more livable communities.

At the highest of levels, the election of our first African-American president running on a platform of change, inclusiveness and personal responsibility sends a powerful signal that we're all part of this great nation. We're all equal partners, and we're all partners -- no one is going to make positive change happen for us, not unless we're all willing to do the work to make it happen. And we're likely to see more citizen involvement in trying to bring about the change people seek.

I never quite understood the reasoning behind Republicans disparaging community organizing. Seriously, it's a bad thing for people to band together to try to improve their communities?

(Sorry for the long delay since the last post. My home computer gave up the ghost, it's taken awhile to get a new computer set up.)

Sprawl and quality of life

When post-World War II suburbs were designed, the idea was to improve quality of life -- give people more space to breathe at affordable prices, compared to cities (viewed as too congested and noisy), while still giving them reasonably easy access to things like shopping.

But half a century later, we discovering that suburban sprawl isn't all it was cracked up to be. Post-1970s development took the original idea and expanded on it, giving people so much "room" that development patterns often made it difficult to do anything without a car or even walk around the neighborhood and get to know your neighbors.

When there's no care given to shared public space, when what greets the streetscape is a huge garage door and not a home's windows and entryways, when front yards are never for living or being in but 100% of activity occurs in private spaces where no neighbor-to-neighbor interaction is possible, well, your sense of community changes. And when you can't do anything -- anything -- without getting in your car, when your kids can't even go visit a friend without being chauffered, well, even those who love automobiles can start growing weary of how many hours they need to spend in their vehicles.

Add an increase in traffic jams and ever longer commutes, and older patterns of development start looking more appealing. Imagine being able to walk to the store to pick up a few things for dinner on a nice early autumn afternoon. I grew up going out for milk and bread for my mom, and she still often walks to the grocery store, hair salon, or to pick up a morning paper.

It immeasurably adds to your community to have lots of your neighbors out and about. I saw it on primary day, when I walked to my polling place and ran into several neighbors who were doing the same; we stopped and chatted about this and that. Those are the kinds of interactions that help stitch together a community, that don't happen unless people are out in shared public space. But we can't be out and about that way unless such space exists; and we can't and won't be out walking unless there's an appealing streetscape to draw us out. Useful destinations we not only can walk to but want to because of an attractive pedestrian environment truly add to our quality of life.

Project aims to turn Mass Ave into 'great pedestrian-friendly street'

Arlington has received state and federal funding to help turn its portion of Massachusetts Avenue "from a transportation corridor to one of Arlington’s great pedestrian-friendly streets," according to the project Web site.

The idea is to better balance the needs of walkers, cyclists and users of mass transit with automobiles. As opposed to the all-too-usual suburban roadway "improvements," typically aimed at how best to move motor vehicle traffic (what some planners rightly refer to as "traffic sewers").

Several public hearings have been scheduled this month on the plan.

The Mass Ave. redesign "will strive to create a truly livable, pedestrian friendly street, where people feel safe and comfortable meeting, shopping, and strolling, while also creating a vehicular traffic system that is safe, efficient, and easy to navigate," planners say.

More specifically, Arlington officials are considering:

* "Changes in street width and sidewalk width that offer options for seating, cafés and landscaping."

* Shorter and more visible crosswalks.

* Bicycle lanes

* Better on-street parking in East Arlington

* "Street furnishings that make using Mass. Ave. more comfortable."

Doesn't sound much like the Rte. 9 or Rte. 30 we know in Framingham ... or even what many people in a position to actually implement plans talk about for Rte. 9 or Rte. 30. But perhaps with enough public support, we'll think about such things going forward?

3 issues for the Mass. transportation office

I wasn't able to make last night's Mass. Executive Office of Transportation workshop in Natick, but here are the 3 issues I e-mailed them about this morning:

1) Walkability on Rte. 30 desperately needs improvement. We need more adequate pedestrian crossings! There are hundreds of office workers off Rte. 30 along Speen Street, the Leggatt-McCall connector and other roads just north of Rte. 30; and a lot of retail across the road we'd like to walk to. However, the pedestrian crossings are either in disrepair or non-existent.

There's a particular problem at the Burr Street intersection - no crosswalk at all, yet the bank many of us use is just across the street. It's not reasonable to expect someone to walk an additional 20 minutes on their lunch break in order to get to and from a pedestrian crossing at a completely different intersection, especially when that crossing (Whittier Street) is itself fairly dicey to use due to the many lanes of traffic. So, we cross at Burr with the light, but it's dangerous because of cars that are making right turns on red.

Down the road, the Speen Street pedestrian crossing is not well marked, which is extremely dangerous considering the high-speed traffic pouring off the Turnpike. In fact, so little care is given to that pedestrian crossing that the last time I used it, I had to dig through a great deal of weed growth in order to find and reach the crossing signal button.

It's crazy to force people to go in their cars a distance of less than half a mile. Some attention to creating a safer, more appealing pedestrian environment could pay large dividends, considering the high concentration of office workers within walking distance of retail destinations.

2) An express bus to Boston from the same general area as the Logan Express in Framingham would be a great idea. The commuter train just isn't that useful an option for those of us who live north of Rte. 9. For me, driving 5 miles southwest through heavy traffic to then wait for a train that takes almost an hour to head back to the northeast to Boston is rarely practical.

3) I wanted to share a perspective that I hope will help you understand how unfair and burdensome the Mass Pike tolls are for the western suburbs.

Imagine a resident who lives in Framingham and works in Newton Corner. That commute is roughly 30 miles roundtrip. Now, say their car gets 30 mpg on the highway. Travel cost for gasoline would currently be about $3.50. Now, add the tolls, and suddenly that resident is paying the equivalent of $5.90 per gallon!

There is no difference in the economic burden between paying per-gallon at the pump or daily as a toll. I ask you to remember what the economic discomfort was for people when gas topped $4 gallon, and then keep in mind for a Framingham-to-Newton commuter -- someone who is getting no direct benefit from the Big Dig -- you are already asking them effectively to pay $5.90/gallon!

A friend of mine who commutes daily from the South Shore recently had to head to Waltham for a week of offsite training. It was an eye-opener. "The Turnpike is really expensive!" my friend said. Indeed it is -- especially when you compare it to people elsewhere in the Boston metropolitan area who commute on toll-free highways. Few people understand this until they are forced to shoulder the burden themselves.

Why are taxpayers in the western suburbs required to fund a project in Boston, paying more than residents of Boston who are benefiting most from the new traffic flow and open space? Why are our tax dollars going to pay for everyone else's roads, but then we're asked not only to pay tolls for our own road, but pay tolls to fund a completely different road?

I urge you to work for equity across all areas of the metropolitan region in terms of the burden we pay for our commuter roads.

Saxonville Lumber site plans: Details and my comments

I got a look at Tony Kwan's plans for the old Saxonville Lumber site yesterday. While as Brett said in the comments, the plan isn't everything I hoped it might be, it's a huge improvement over what's there now, and a lot better than plenty of other possible site uses.

[caption id="attachment_744" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Model of Riverview Plaza project at the old Saxonville Lumber site. Click image to see larger version."][/caption]

Here's a photo of the model of what the Saxonville Riverview Plaza would look like. The existing larger building will be kept where it is, but renovated  to become a "two-story facility with a contemporized colonial facade." An "ornamental exterior deck" would be a covered walkway with planters.  This building would be used as a health club, medical offices and small bank area. The new, smaller building would be for retail.

[caption id="attachment_748" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Artist rendition of proposed Riverview Plaza building facades (click image to view larger version)."][/caption]

You can see an artist's rendition of what the building facades would look like in the photo at the right.

Developer Tony Kwan says he's willing to donate some property to widen Concord Street there and provide an additional travel lane. The big intersection on the model photo above is at Concord and A streets.

I'm not a traffic-flow expert, and am not sure how you'd keep traffic from backing up on Concord and School streets with a traffic light at Concord and A. But I  hope that can be figured out.

I do know something about pedestrian-friendly development and walkability, and that entrance/exit with the three lanes of  cars going in and out needs to be redesigned; an unbroken driveway three lanes wide is a walkable-streetscape killer. This can be easily fixed by cutting the entering and exiting driveway to two lanes; or, if that's not possible, by putting a decent divider between the entering and exiting lanes, giving walkers a wide enough place to pause and not feel threatened by the traffic. In addition, a great deal of thought needs to be given to that intersection to make it not only theoretically possible to cross the street safely, but make it feel safe and like a compelling walking corridor.

[caption id="attachment_746" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Poster explaining some features of the proposed Riverview Plaza. Click image to see larger version"][/caption]

One of the most intriguing parts of the project is a so-called "pocket park" that will give both access and view to the Sudbury River. Here's a photo of an explainer for the park. Plans say it will include paved walkways, benches overlooking the river, bicycle racks and a drinking fountain. I hope he'll consider including a restaurant or cafe with outdoor seating facing the river and that park, to integrate the two and make the park part of the retail experience, instead of having a big blank wall with no windows or doors facing the river.

In general, though, this is a great addition to the Saxonville business district, since right now it's all but impossible to see or enjoy the river from most commercial areas of the Saxonville business district.

The Conservation Commission is scheduled to consider the project on Oct. 1, and the Planning Board on Oct. 16.